Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge Review: The World's Most Beautiful Phone

I wouldn't describe the Samsung Galaxy S5 as a failure and I certainly think it sold enough units to be called a success, but it was very clear when it launched that the excitement was gone from the public's perception of the Samsung's flagship. All of that damaged Samsung's profits and gave other firms the chance to show what they could do. LG, in particular, had a great deal of success with the G3.

The Galaxy S6 needed to do something dramatic to get people excited once again about Samsung's crucial phone. So has Samsung succeeded in generating hype about the S6 and S6 Edge? Well, you can be the judge of that, but from a professional perspective I have to say I think I've seen more excitement about these two phones than almost any other.

Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge - image credit: Ian Morris

The company unveiled the S6 and S6 Edge at Mobile World Congress this year, an event to which I was invited to cover for another publication, as a guest of the Samsung. Normally over-long and dull, Samsung executives made jokes and announced just this one product. Anyone who has been to a CES will tell you that this is the reverse of what Samsung usually does.

Of the two devices it seems to be the Edge, in particular, which has attracted most interest. I could see that from the traffic in my hands-on reviews, the Edge was what people wanted to read about. In hardware terms, this phone is an evolution. Aesthetically though, it's a revolution.

The edge is for show

From a design perspective I do really like the edge design, if you're weighing up the options for your next phone purchase then I urge you to go and check the phone out at a store near you. It's easy for me to claim it's amazing, but unless you've seen it you won't appreciate what it does and does not add to the phone.

The edge display is less functional than the one on the Note Edge, but it still has some uses - image credit: Ian Morris

I do want to make one thing very clear though, this curved design is far less functional than the one on the Note Edge. Indeed, when you actually look at it closely you'll notice that the curve is very subtle, and the phone is clearly designed to impress visually, rather than change the world of mobile devices.

There are two main things the edge on the S6 Edge is used for. The first is as a way of signalling who's calling. Put the phone on the table, with its face downward and when you get a call from one of your contacts the device will pulse a colour which you assign to your favourites. You can also access your favourite contacts by swiping in from the right-hand edge. This is actually nicely designed, although those with a lot of commonly-called numbers will no-doubt find just five favourites a bit restrictive.

The second feature follows on from the Note Edge. Here you can swipe the edge, and a news feed will appear with the option to access Android notifications and news along with the obligatory weather forecast.

Wiping the "edge" will give you news, and weather updates, along with notifications - image credit: Ian Morris

One thing that I missed a lot was in Flipboard - which Samsung includes on its home screen setup by default. On the Note Edge, there are coloured tabs along the right-hand side that tell you what section you're reading, and let you flick around between the others. This doesn't appear on the Galaxy Edge at all, which I really thought was a shame.

Likewise, there are no games or apps for the edge display as there are on the Note Edge. No Tiny Burger game to play while you're on the train. Nothing. Indeed, I suspect that Samsung doesn't really want to encourage use of this display, just simply keep it as an attractive design element.

One thing that is always somewhat problematic with smartphones are fingerprints. Because Samsung has opted to use glass on both the front and back of the S6 and S6 Edge, it can get pretty messy looking fairly quickly. This isn't so bad on the black review sample I received, but on the gold model I saw at the London pre-brief, and again at the launch, it was much more of a problem.

You might also want to consider how this phone will age. Will the glass scratch? Well, that's a question that can only be answered when the phone goes on sale and people put them through the rigours of daily life. Samsung says the phone is tough, and I certainly feel like it's a nicely built device but glass all over caused no end of problems for
Apple, so it will be interesting to see how things work out for Samsung.

One problem Samsung doesn't have though is one of weight. Pick up the iPhone 4 and you realise just how far technology has come with reducing the thickness, but keeping the strength of glass.

It's also possible to have a moan about Samsung's design when compared to the iPhone. You only need to look at photos of the two devices together and you'll see that there's a real similarity between the two. But heck, Steve Jobs was fond of quoting Picasso on this subject 'good artists copy; great artists steal'. It probably isn't even fair to claim that this design is 'stolen' though, but I wouldn't blame anyone for coming to that conclusion.

iPhone and S6 Edge together - image credit: Ian Morris

My test for phone design is simple though. When I pick it up after the initial excitement has worn off, do I still love the look and feel of the phone? My iPhone 6 Plus and Note 4 both still give me a thrill, and I think the S6 Edge will too, but it's a little early to tell.

The screen is amazing, with some small caveats

Bearing in mind that I have two phones that I use a lot, both are phablets, so moving to the much smaller Galaxy S6 edge was always going to be a bit of a culture shock.

The screen - and phone in general - are both much smaller here, but the resolution is nothing short of breathtaking.The resolution of 1440 x 2560 adds up to a pixels per inch density (PPI) of 577. That makes it the highest resolution phone on the market. For now.

The screen is, without doubt, very special - image credit: Ian Morris

With the Edge, there are some other important things to understand too. Because the screen is curved, when things fill it up they can appear a little distorted at the edges. Take a webpage and at the edges as it starts to fall off the curve you will see a slight discolouring.

The other thing to note is that the edge display here - unlike on the Note Edge - is considered part of the main display. So watch videos, or use the phone's camera and you'll see the image curving slightly. It's not a problem, but it might irk you if you're keen to get every last piece of screen real estate working for you.

Voice control advances

Samsung seems to have put a lot of effort into S Voice too. At the London pre-brief, I asked where S Voice had gone, now the camera had been give the old S Voice shortcut of double pressing the home button. The answer, it turned out is that S Voice now listens all the time, much as
Google Now did on the Moto X. You have to train it with your own command during setup, and then you can speak that at any time to start talking to the phone.

S Voice is good to use too and even when your phone is locked you can get information. For example, asking about the weather or saying "navigate" will all work without the need to unlock the phone. This is good if you're in the car and don't want to be distracted and the system seems flexible enough in understanding what you're asking for.

I've liked Samsung's health tracking app for some time, it's self-contained and can keep an eye on your general health without the need for extra sensors. Steps are counted by the phone, and there seems to be an accuracy increase here because it didn't record as much activity when I was at home as other phones I've tested.

The heart rate monitor, blood oxygenation and stress measurement all work as expected. Everything here seems to have been both visually smartened, but also I got far few mis-reads on my heart rate than I have on other Samsung devices. You could argue that tracking this information has little value, but with everything build into the phone it could be a handy motivational tool. I do enjoy hitting my steps target, even if I don't manage it every single day.

It's also worth mentioning that the heart rate sensor is also used in two other areas. It can be used to snap a 'selfie' when using the front-facing camera, which works really well. It can also be used to silence the phone when it's ringing. This is designed to work best with the curved display's colour pulse to inform you when a favourite contact is calling.

Goodbye microSD

One thing that I will mourn the loss of is the microSD card slot. On Samsung phones this was something of a constant, and it meant that users were able to move from one device to the next while keeping their content with them. But the tide is changing. Google hates microSD storage, especially for apps, because it doesn't have performance guarantees. For photos and music cards are fine, but with the fall in prices both for online storage and internal memory the need is reduced for extra capacity.

Look, no microSD just a SIM tray - image credit: Ian Morris

In fairness, Samsung has also simplified the internal storage situation. Previously not all regions would get the larger capacity device, but this has now changed. The S6 and S6 Edge will both come in 32, 64 and 128GB capacities.

Fingerprint scanning

I would have struggled to be less enthusiastic about the fingerprint scanner on the S5 and Note 4. Both are a good idea that's poorly executed. Samsung has, thankfully, sorted this on the S6 and Edge. Now the process is much like the one on the iPhone - it looks startlingly similar too - and the phone doesn't require you swipe your finger. Instead, placing your finger on the home button, then removing and repeating will build up a picture of your fingerprint.

The fingerprint scanner is much-improved from the Note 4 and now works incredibly well - image credit: Ian Morris

What all of this means in practical terms is that you can put your chosen finger on the home screen at any angle, and the phone should just unlock. I compared this to the loan phone I have from Apple and I think the iPhone is better still, but the Samsung is such a vast improvement over the previous generation that it does earn a lot of respect.

Battery life

British technology journalist Charles Arthur made a really interesting point about Samsung's move to a built-in battery from a user-replaceable one. You can read his thoughts on his blog, but the conclusion is that Samsung knows how many extra batteries it sells for devices, and that's why it took the choice away with the S6.

A lot of people like having the option to replace their battery, some moan when it's taken away, but most people never bother. And why would they because it's far easier to have a charger on your desk at work, or a portable battery to top your handset up than to swap things around during the day.

Battery life is good, but not amazing and reduces as you use more services - image credit: Ian Morris

But how does the phone manage with its fairly meager battery, well actually pretty well. On the first day I fully charged the handset I was surprised how long it lasted. I got about 18 hours of really good use. As time went on, of course, more apps have been installed and more stuff has been switched on. So, for example, location services are off when you get the phone, so when you first use maps they get turned on. That will have an impact on battery life, as will every email account you add and every push notification you get.

As things stand now, about a week into having the phone, things are okay. I took it off charge at about 8am, and by 5pm it was down to 20 per cent. Not ideal, but that's with a decent amount of Wi-Fi use, there has also been a problem with my cell service today, which might have made the phone work harder to get a signal.

For most use, the S6 Edge is actually very good. It's nothing like the pure stamina you get with the Note 4, but this is a much smaller device. Some of that extra efficiency might be attributable to the Samsung designed SoC, but I suspect there not a huge amount in that. Samsung, if you aren't aware, is using a 14nm process on its SoC, which should reduce heat output and power consumption.

Wireless charging

Finally, after ignoring wireless charging for years, Samsung has included it. Of course, it had little choice here as there's no way to add it later without going down the Starbucks route of a little hoop you plug in the USB socket.

In case you missed it during the announcement, the S6 and S6 Edge both have wireless charging built-in, which supports both Qi and Powermat systems. Samsung says this means you can charge at either McDonalds (Qi) or Starbucks (Powermat). I haven't tried either, but I do have a Tylt wireless charging stand that I'm reviewing and it works a charm.

Hidden in the back here, behind the glass, is support for two wireless charging standards - image credit: Ian Morris

Things seem to slow down when you charge wirelessly though, and with a peak efficiency of about 90 per cent, the system isn't ideal, but from a convenience point-of-view it's quite helpful. Samsung has a wireless pad you can buy. Some UK carriers are giving them away with pre-orders, but some of the time I just used mine on an LG cradle I was sent - I had to put the phone upside down - or the Microsoft puck that it sends out with some handsets.

Performance

When the rumours started that Samsung was dropping Qualcomm over the Snapdragon 810 overheating claims there was some worry about the speed and efficiency of the S6. In fact, from what I've seen so far if you had never been told the chipset had changed, you'd probably never know.

There's a reason for this too, because at their heart a phone with Snapdragon and a phone with Exynos will both have a processor based of the same architecture. In this case, the phone has two quad-core processors. One runs at 1.5GHz, the other at 2.1GHz an arrangement that is similar to the one in the LG G Flex 2 or HTC One M9.

In terms of GPU, the Samsung runs a Mali T760 and the HTC an Adreno 430, and it may be this that explains why the Samsung is far faster than other phones.

I don't really care for benchmarking as a way to determine much with phones, but if you want to compare the S6 to the G Flex 2 or your own phone then here are the results I got.

AnTuTu Benchmark v5.6.2 - 68059 (64bit)

AnTuTu Benchmark v5.6.2 - 62748 (32bit)

Geekbench 3 – 1483 (single-core)

Geekbench 3 – 4861 (multi-core)

3DMark – Maxed out (Ice Storm Extreme)

3DMark - 20979 (Ice Storm Unlimited)

In terms of real-world usability, the phone is pretty great. Samsung has, in the past, really suffered with UI lag. This was sometimes a problem with the way it set up the interface, with odd delays to allow the phone to launch S Voice. Or it was sometimes just because Touchwiz was a bit rubbish. I really didn't find any issues with the UI on the S6. The phone feels snappy all the time.

In terms of heat and power consumption, the benchmarking I did on the first day I got the phone showed just how quickly you can suck the battery in the S6 Edge dry if you really push it hard.

Camera and video

I want to take a moment here to urge the YouTube generation to stop shooting at 24fps. Seriously, trying to make video content at 24fps is just absurd. To that end, the S6 can record in resolutions of 1080p at 60fps. That means you get very fluid motion, and much less of the blur you tend to see on movies. The results I got from filming my kids were really very good indeed, and with YouTube supporting higher frame rates now seems like a good time for us to make use of it when phones support it.

The camera is fast and responsive - image credit: Ian Morris

If 4K is more your bag, then you can shoot in both QHD (2560x1440) or UHD (3840x2160) but you'll have to drop the frame rate down to 30fps.

No matter what format you use, videos do look good and have a lot of vivid colour. Detail is mostly good too, although at times it's quite obvious you're looking at a highly compressed video. I also noticed that the autofocus can be a bit too keen to adjust itself, and that can lead to some hunting while you're recording.

The camera produces good images, but with some softness - image credit: Ian Morris

For stills the results are good. Samsung sets its smart HDR mode to on automatically and although you're free to switch it off, it does help produce some well-balanced photos. HDR means that bright areas and dark ones should both have a good amount of visible detail.

If you're into messing with settings then the 'Pro' mode should allow you to tweak the performance of the camera further. The truth of the matter though is that I like to shoot manual mode on my SLR, but when it comes to a phone I just want it to automate the process. For this the Samsung is excellent, but then Samsung has been getting phone cameras right for a while now.

S6 Edge camera sample with HDR on - image credit: Ian Morris

It's also good to note that the app for shooting is now much faster too. For the first time pressing the shutter button takes a photo without any delay, with the phone ready to take another 16-megapixel image straight after. I've strongly disliked both Google and Samsung's camera apps in the past, but the new version included here is really very hard to find fault with.

Bloatware and Samsung apps

At the S6 launch Samsung told the assembled journalists that it has stripped out much of the extra clutter and software from the device. In addition to that, it emerged after that users would be able to delete or hide apps that they didn't want. Some key apps, like S Voice can't be removed, but you can opt to hide them from view.

My review handset was clearly running a German build of Samsung's software as there were a few region-specific apps installed. This was an ideal time for me to test the removal process, and it all seemed to work well. There's a powerful argument that says we shouldn't need to do this in the first place, but at least here you can dispose of the worst of the clutter. Apple has recently come under fire for putting an unremovable Watch app on the latest version of iOS, so this isn't simply an Android problem.

Should you buy the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge?

If you've read the review above and are still in doubt, then I suspect that the Edge isn't for you. Take a look at the standard S6 review - I'll have that device after I hand back the Edge later this week, so expect a review shortly.

A really amazing phone, but don't forget the S6 is cheaper than the Edge and has the same features - image credit: Ian Morris

To be clear, the edge design is mostly just a piece of beautiful design. Personally, I have no problem with that and I do think the phone looks amazing for its inclusion. The big problem though is one of price. With the modest amount that the curved design brings, is it really worth paying more for over the regular S6? I dare say the answer is no.

But you know what? Who cares. If you like the curved design, then buy the Edge, there's no shame in picking a device just because you think it looks nice. There's not a lot about this phone that is worse for having a curve - besides those very mild screen issues.

Conclusion

The S6 Edge is, without doubt, the best looking phone Samsung has ever produced. Gone is the boring look of the S5, and instead here is a phone that has the appeal that Apple oozes with the iPhone. Every time I pick it up, a combination of the lightweight, metal frame and curved screen make me appreciate what a leap forward in design this handset is.

The phone itself is backed up by solid hardware. The move from Qualcomm system-on-a-chip doesn't seem to have slowed Samsung and the S6 Edge benchmarks well above any other phone on the market right now.

My honest feeling is that this is exactly the phone Samsung needed to produce. It has the looks that iPhone users will find appealing, it's got construction quality that rivals that of HTC and it tosses out the things that people hated about older Samsung devices and offers a more lightweight and snappy user interface. While I'll miss the microSD card and higher capacity battery, I think Samsung has nailed what the consumer wants - a phone that has all the power and a huge amount of style.